


falls the shadow

by batter



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: AU: detectives/law enforcement, Crime Scenes, M/M, Murder, Nobody Here Is A Good Person, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 06:32:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14302908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batter/pseuds/batter
Summary: 'Shane shrugs with one shoulder, eyes not quite meeting Ryan’s. “Sure. I think we’re all just grateful to have the extra help. This kind of case spooks everyone a little, and to go this long and not have even a single suspect…” He trails off, shuddering minutely. “We don’tgetthis kind of shit out here.”Ryan gives him a long look, and thinks,If FBI profilers are being called in before the state police, then someone thinks that’s about to change.'





	falls the shadow

January 16 2018  - 23:11

The man in the baseball cap crumples to the ground like a puppet cut from its strings.

On either side of him, Ryan and Shane stand, eyes locked and chests heaving, waiting, just waiting. Ryan’s fingers are still clutching his side, sticky where the blood has seeped through, sticky where the knife had grazed his stomach. Shane’s fist is still white-knuckled around the grip of his baton, arm still raised to swing.

There is a minute, perhaps, where there is silence, unbearable and buzzing with static and potential, and then at their feet, the man groans, rolling over onto his back. 

Ryan starts, breaks eye contact, because now he can’t stop looking at the man on the floor, at the rise and fall of his chest, and he thinks,  _ still breathing, that’s not good. _

Then, at once, the tension that was keeping them taut, the amber that held this moment in place is shattered, and the next moments happen in flashes, movements matched in tandem, he and Shane as a perfect machine.

His knees hit the floor and Shane is already there, eyes blank and steadying as he watches Ryan straddle the man’s chest, wrap fingers around the column of his throat and start  _ pushing.  _

Then comes the struggle, a jolting and a flailing and a choking, and Ryan doesn’t even have to open his mouth before Shane is there, body leaned into Ryan’s as he pins the man’s arms to the floor with his knees, holds heavy hands over his nose and mouth.

_ two-and-fifty-five, two-and-fifty-six, two-and-fifty-seven, two-and-fifty-eight, two-and-fifty-nine –  _

_ Three minutes. _

The struggling stops.

Ryan and Shane, foreheads pressed close together and teeth gritted shut, lock eyes, and for the first time, they  _ look. _

  
  


August 10 2017 - 18:45

Ryan fidgets in the car seat, watching the desert rush by in a blur of monotonous dirt outside of his window.

Beside him, Tinsley is cutting as stern a figure as ever, hands on the steering wheel and eyes steady on the road, but Ryan can read him better than most, knows the pensive frown around his mouth. This case is making them both uncomfortable, has been since the preliminary call, with emails and plane tickets and police liaisons and an entire case ignoring the looming shadow of a question;  _ Why are we here? _

They’re following behind a deputy in a Maricopa County squad car, headed towards the crime scene, and Ryan watches as they turn into the suburbs, the stark desert landscape giving way abruptly to walled-off, quaint houses, stark grey sidewalks, and landscaped stretches of gravel with strange, prickly bushes at odd intervals. They pass by an interesting little assortment of people; kids playing in the street who steer their bikes and scooters to the side of the road as they pass; people sitting in lawn chairs in open garages, music blaring from tinny speakers and beer cans scattered at their feet; folks who aren’t pretending to be anything  _ but  _ rubberneckers, hovering just outside of their front doors and gawking as the police and FBI vehicles pass by.

By the time they park in a cul-de-sac beside the MCSO squad car, the street is deserted aside from the officers milling around near the police line, so Ryan figures they’ve done a pretty good job of chasing off any gaggles of concerned citizens. He’s not under the impression that they’re not being watched, though; the smaller the neighborhood, the nosier the neighbors, and he can see lights on behind every window on the street.

Tinsley turns off the car and they step out, Ryan immediately mourning the loss of the AC as he’s nearly bowled over by the heat. Almost seven in the evening in August, and it’s still over a hundred fucking degrees. Arizona is almost certainly proof that there’s no such thing as a kind and merciful god.

The deputy they followed has left his car as well, waving them over towards the yard of the cordoned-off house and saying something indistinctly into the radio on his shoulder. 

They don’t quite make it to the crime scene perimeter before Ryan spots a tall guy in a tan Maricopa County uniform coming out of the front door of the house, crossing the front yard in a few long strides and ducking underneath the yellow tape. Ryan watches his eyes dart between the two of them, before he holds out a hand to Tinsley.

“Agent Tinsley?” Tinsley nods, giving a quick, firm shake. The man turns his attention on Ryan, saying, “And, uh, Agent Bergara, right?” Ryan gives him a quick, tight smile, nodding as he shakes his hand as well.

The man shuffles a little on his feet, setting his shoulders with an air of professionalism as he starts to speak. “Glad you both got here alright. I’m Sergeant Madej, so I’ll be your liaison between the FBI and the Sheriff's Office. I know it’s getting pretty late, but I figured you guys would want a firsthand look at the crime scene as soon as possible, before city police step in and start their cleanup.”

Tinsley gives a brief, gruff acknowledgement, and the three of them begin to walk towards the house, Ryan and Tinsley following close at Sergant Madej’s heels.

Ryan studies Madej.

He’s irritatingly tall, six-foot-something, three or four at a glance, and between the awkward, narrow way he’s built, the gangly way he moves, and the scruffy, trendy hairstyle, Ryan wouldn’t place him at much older than thirty, which is frankly fucking  _ astoundingly  _ young to have made sergeant. Despite his age, though, despite the nervous, earnest demeanor he gives off, he holds himself right for his rank. There’s no question, when he walks through the threshold of the house, that the chevrons on his uniform are most certainly meant to be there, that this is  _ his  _ crime scene and he knows what he’s doing with it.

As they step through the front hall into the living room of the house, Ryan scrubs his sleeve across his forehead, already grateful for the air conditioning. There are a few officers scattered throughout the room, mostly in the same browns as Madej, but he spots a couple of city police blues hunched over an open folder in a hallway.

Ryan grimaces a little as they make their way to the center of the room, careful to avoid the evidence markers scattered across the hardwood floor. It never really matters how many times he does this; between the blood, feces, and urine, murders never really smell pretty. 

His visceral disgust is only brief, though; he can’t afford to get distracted, not when there’s a crime scene in front of him, and soon enough, he’s taking in everything else about the room. Nice hardwood floors, real leather sofa,  _ rich,  _ big windows, no screens on them,  _ vulnerable,  _ but wait, flat screen tv, macbook on the table, iPad nearby,  _ not a burglary gone wrong, then.  _ The blood is interesting – two pools for two missing bodies, dried a tacky, red-brown on the floor, but there are streaks, stains, splatters,  _ a struggle, then, they were crawling towards the hallway, towards the bedrooms.  _

“Sergeant, if you could give us a brief rundown of the case?” Tinsley prompts, and Ryan nods absently, still looking, observing, but now with half an ear trained on Madej, ready to line the finer details up to what he’s seeing.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Madej holding out a hand, calling, “Can I get the official autopsy? Do we have that?” From somewhere in the room, one of his officers appears, handing him a manilla folder.

“O-kay, let’s see… The house belongs to Peter and Isabel Vasquez, they lived here with their fifteen year-old son, Ray. On August fifth, around five P.M., Queen Creek police received an anonymous phone call about a disturbance of some sort at the house. When they arrived to check it out, they found the door unlocked, came inside to find Mr. and Mrs. Vasquez shot dead in the living room,” and here, Madej gestures briefly to the bloodstains on the floor, “and when they went further into the house, they found Ray Vasquez in his bedroom, sitting at his desk with a bullet in his head. County got called in pretty quick, so we’ve been running the investigation from the sixth until now.”

From somewhere, Madej procures photos from before the bodies were moved; Peter and Isabel slumped face down on the floor, Isabel’s hand still stretched out in front of her; Ray collapsed forward onto his desk, as if…

“Ray didn’t see it coming,” Ryan comments. “He was shot, and when Mom and Dad went to see what the noise was, they were shot too.”

Madej shrugs. “Sure looks that way to me.”

“The question is,” Tinsley murmurs, “how does our killer get inside without Peter and Isabel noticing?”

Ryan starts walking the perimeter of the room as he listens to Madej and Tinsley speak, trying to get his bearings in the room, trying to put himself in this murderer’s shoes.

“No sign of forced entry at either of the doors,” Madej says. “We’ve done a couple of door-to-doors in the neighborhood, and it seems like they were sort of recluses. None of the neighbors had ever been inside of the house, or ever spoke to the family regularly, Ray never played or hung out with any of the local kids. No work friends, no acquaintances, and the closest relatives are in Ohio or across the border in Nuevo Laredo. If somebody outside of the family had a key to the house, we’re gonna have a  _ hell  _ of a time figuring out who.”

Ryan can  _ hear  _ the sardonic grin in Tinsley’s voice. “Better get started then, Sergeant. I’m sure you know the drill – formal interviews with the neighbors, colleagues, anyone who they spoke to regularly, anyone who might’ve known their schedule or the house. Hit the son’s school, as well, figure out his relationships with teachers, classmates. Did he have a girlfriend, boyfriend, sports teams, clubs, was he bullied, the works. We’re looking for any viable connections, as well as establishing any alibis that we can. In the meantime, we’ll take a closer look at the bodies, see if there’s anything strange going on. Bergara?”

At his name, Ryan turns, and he nods for Tinsley to continue.

“Make sure Yang and Kornfeld have a copy of the autopsy and the incident report to look over tonight. We’ll head to the morgue tomorrow morning, see what they make of it.”   
  
Ryan hums his agreement, still distracted, turning back to look out the window. The sun is setting just over the garden wall, making him squint as he looks out over the immaculate lawn, the vibrant desert flowers, the thriving trees, stretching along the entire back length of the large house. His eyes catch on the wooden gate built into the far wall.

“What’s up with the windows?” He asks, or, well, blurts would be more accurate. When he glances over his shoulder, Tinsley is squinting at him, and Madej just blinks, confused.

Ryan digs in his coat pocket until he finds what he’s looking for, and pulls on the pair of blue latex gloves. One by one, he rounds the windows in the room, pulling up from the bottom sill.

_ Locked, locked, locked, locked, locked… _

He heads down the hall, in the direction of Ray’s bedroom, Madej and Tinsey close on his heels.

The smell in here is overwhelming, stale and foul, and Ryan holds one sleeve up to his nose as he makes his way past the twin bed and old office chair to the sole window at the back of the room. 

When he pushes up on the bottom sill, the window slides open easily, fresh air flooding into the room.

“So,” Ryan says, lowering his sleeve from his face, “Ray Vasquez likes to keep his window open.”

Tinsley picks up on his train of thought immediately. “And someone knew it would be an easy point of entry.”

Madej gives a heavy sigh, scrubbing a hand across his face. “Or he let them in.”

  
  


August 10 2017 - 22:19

Between the flight, the car rides, and the inevitable drain of crime scene procedure, by the time Madej pulls up to the hotel where the FBI consultants are staying, Ryan is yawning into his fist, having spent the ride trying not to fall asleep.

Sergeant Madej ( _ Shane,  _ he keeps correcting,  _ everyone calls me Shane, _ but Ryan’s not willing to risk the infamous Tinsley Side-Eye that breach of professionalism will get him) had offered to take him down to his office for a copy of the autopsy and incident reports for the forensics team, and drive him back to the hotel.

It’s an interesting level of cooperation and friendliness, above and beyond what Ryan usually expects from local police, and he shifts uncomfortably as he grabs the files he needs off of the dashboard. “Thanks for everything you’re doing, Sergeant,” he says, not content to just leave for the night without in some way acknowledging it.

Madej shrugs with one shoulder, eyes not quite meeting Ryan’s. “Sure. I think we’re all just grateful to have the extra help. This kind of case spooks everyone a little, and to go this long and not have even a single suspect…” He trails off, shuddering minutely. “We don’t  _ get  _ this kind of shit out here.”

Ryan gives him a long look. What he says is this:

“Of course, I totally get it. Still, I appreciate it. Meet you at the medical examiner’s office tomorrow, seven A.M.?”

What he thinks is this:

_ If FBI profilers are being called in before the state police, then someone thinks that’s about to change. _

Madej smiles. “Right. See you tomorrow, Agent Bergara.”

**Author's Note:**

> so i joined the buzzfeed writer's discord, and while i literally haven't said a word to anyone, seeing the fact that Everyone Is Working On So Much All The Time is remarkably motivating to get one's ass into gear
> 
> for the record anyone who's seen NBC's hannibal will see where i'm drawing some conceptual inspiration but Please. This Is Not A Hannibal AU
> 
> anyways sup i'm eli, i'm new around here, yall can catch me @heybatterbatter on tumblr if you care to


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